15th Annual Conference
april 3, 2013
Community and Institutional Transformative Practices: Inclusion, Equity, and Awareness
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Philosophy
The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) is committed to a philosophy of inclusion that embraces the basic tenets of cultural pluralism. NAME celebrates cultural and ethnic diversity as a national strength that enriches a society and rejects the view that diversity threatens the fabric of a society.
NAME supports the belief that multicultural education promotes equity for all regardless of culture, ethnicity, race, class, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or religion. Thus, fair and full participation in a society’s institutions is paramount as both means and end in NAME’s philosophy. Xenophobia, discrimination, ethnocentrism, racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia are societal phenomena that are inconsistent with the principles of democracy and lead to the counterproductive reasoning that differences are deficiencies.
NAME embodies the belief that multicultural education enables the individual to believe in one’s own intrinsic worth and culture, to transcend monoculturalism and, ultimately, to become multicultural. This developmental process is at the center of the individual’s noble quest to define one’s relationship and responsibility to our global society.
NAME recognizes that individuals have not always been, and perhaps never will be, in complete agreement regarding the definitions and goals of multicultural education and that continuing debate is healthy.
The History of NAME (Goals/Objectives)
At the 1990 meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators’ (ATE) Multicultural Education Special Interest Group, Rose Duhon-Sells challenged members to create such an organization. The new association, NAME, was launched through a national conference held in conjunction with the 1991 ATE meeting in New Orleans. For more information, click here. (PDF) |
